by Ann Mcintosh
She’s expecting a baby...
...but not to meet her Mr. Right!
After leaving her cheating ex, nurse Nychelle Cory decided to have the baby she’s always wanted through IVF. As she’s determined to raise her child alone, she must ignore her inconvenient attraction to gorgeous colleague Dr. David Warmington. Especially as David has his own reasons for not wanting a family. But could Nychelle’s long-awaited miracle help heal them both?
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he said again, and she knew she couldn’t. To do so would be to lie.
“I can’t. You know I can’t. But...”
He didn’t wait to hear the rest, just took her mouth in a kiss that made what she’d planned to say fly right out of her brain.
Desire flared, hotter than the Florida sun, and Nychelle surrendered to it, unable, unwilling to risk missing this chance to know David intimately, even if it were just this once. Was it right? Wrong? She couldn’t decide, didn’t want to try to. There were so many more things she should explain to him, but she knew she wouldn’t. Telling him about the baby, when she knew he didn’t want a family, would destroy whatever was growing between them. It was craven, perhaps even despicable not to be honest with him, and she hated herself for being underhanded, but her mind, heart and body were at war and she’d already accepted which would win.
She’d deal with the fallout, whatever it would be, tomorrow. Today, this evening, she was going to have what she wanted, live the way she wanted. Enjoy David, probably for this one time. There would be only regrets if she didn’t.
Dear Reader,
I’m excited to write my first letter for the front pages of a Harlequin Medical Romance. It’s the best of “chores” because it means by the time you read this, my book, The Nurse’s Pregnancy Miracle, will be published. Even now when I think about having this book acquired by Harlequin, I want to run around flailing my arms in glee.
The setting of this story owes a lot to the weather. I entered the Medical fast track during a cold Canadian February. It’s the time of year when people like me feel the frigid grayness will never go away. So, when it came to the location of the story, I knew it would be somewhere warm. I chose South Florida, a place that means fun, sun and family to me, so was perfect.
Fort Lauderdale is as hot and sexy as the attraction between Nychelle and David. I so love them! Nychelle is someone I’d like to hang out with; David is a man any woman would love. Each of them has a secret, and deep pain they need to work through before they can find their happily-ever-after. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’d love to hear from you, and for more information, please visit my website at authorannmcintosh.com.
Ann McIntosh
The Nurse’s Pregnancy Miracle
Ann McIntosh
The Nurse’s Pregnancy Miracle
is Ann McIntosh’s debut title for Harlequin.
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
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This book is dedicated to my late mother, Helen Delvaillé, a voracious Harlequin/Mills & Boon reader. I think she’d be happy to see my book printed by her favorite publisher, although she’d probably just deadpan, “Oh, good.” Not all romantics are effusive!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM HEALED BY HER ARMY DOC BY MEREDITH WEBBER
CHAPTER ONE
WALKING BRISKLY THROUGH the waiting area of the Lauderlakes Family Medical Center, Nychelle Cory scanned the room, once more noting the contrast between the opulent surroundings and the rather squalid interior of the inner-city clinic she’d worked at up until just a couple of years before.
The marble flooring and the crystal chandelier, hung precisely beneath the domed skylight, wouldn’t be out of place in a grand home. Instead of the standard faux leather seating typical of medical clinics, comfortable upholstered chairs and love seats were arranged in small clusters around antique side tables. Every inch of the place was designed to give the illusion of being a luxurious hotel lobby, perhaps in the hope of helping people forget they were waiting to see a doctor.
Few people would understand but, oh, how she missed the hustle and near chaos of working at the low-cost clinic. So rewarding, helping those that others often forgot. But she’d known from the moment she took the job there that, financially, it wouldn’t be enough to advance The Plan.
Funny to realize that was how she always thought of it—not as Plan A, or as a prospective life plan. Just The Plan, with caps and italics, the way she’d written it in her diary when she was just thirteen years old. Below that she’d listed what she wanted, and the list was pretty short.
Children. Three or four.
A job that lets me spend lots of time with them.
A nice husband who wants to spend time with the kids too.
Looking back on it, number three had been tacked on at the end, as if she’d already made up her mind that the husband wasn’t exactly a necessary part of the process.
That thought made her suppress a little snort of laughter. The Plan definitely hadn’t come about the way she’d initially thought it would, but she wasn’t complaining. In fact she’d go so far as to claim she had the best of all worlds.
Getting a plum job at Fort Lauderdale’s premier general care clinic was helping bring her dreams to fruition, yet money alone wouldn’t have lured her to Lauderlakes. Her need to help the less fortunate was strong, and luckily Dr. Hamatty, Lauderlakes’ founder, believed in giving back too, working with local charities to put on free clinics three times a year.
Not the same as being in the trenches all the time, but it helped give her altruistic nature much-needed satisfaction.
There were a handful of people scattered around the waiting area. Sitting close together on a love seat, phones in hand, were a young couple who looked as though they’d just stepped out from between the pages of a high-end travel magazine. In the play area, just visible behind a floor-to-ceiling, glass-paneled waterfall, a toddler laughed, the sound muted by the tinkle of water.
Nodding hello to her next patient—a stylish older lady seated in a club chair—Nychelle paused for a moment in front of the intake desk and transferred her attention to Gina, the receptionist, who gave one of her usual tight-lipped smiles.
“Glad to see you back.” Gina raised one perfectly groomed brow as she spoke quietly, the way they were all instructed to, so as to maintain the atmosphere. “Did you have a good vacation?”
“I wouldn’t call it a vacation.” Nychelle gave a quick shrug, even as her heart did that trip-hammer thing it kept doing every time she thought about her days off and what they could mean. “Just took some time to get some things done.”
Like undergo intrauterine insemination and then keep quiet for a few days to give my
body the best chance to make a baby.
Thankfully her complexion was too dark to show the blush as heat rushed up from the neck of her silk shirt and the stylish lab coat covering it into her face. Keeping her expression neutral was so hard, but imperative. Despite Gina’s chic, cool appearance, the receptionist was a Class A gossip, highly effective in ferreting out any and all information others tried to keep from her. With just the slightest hint of anything out of the ordinary going on Gina would be off and running.
“Boring.” Gina drew the softly spoken word out until it was half a mile long, flipping a long curl of black hair over her shoulder for emphasis. “I was at the very least hoping to hear you’d gone to Jamaica.” The smile was a little more relaxed, a little more interrogatory. “The stories I’ve heard about your homeland and the men there...”
Nychelle couldn’t hold back a little gurgle of laughter as she took another look at the information on the tablet in her hand.
Katalina Ivanenko.
Sixty-two years old.
Routine wellness check, including follow-up on previous bone density test.
History of arthritis...
“The rumors of my countrymen’s decadence are highly exaggerated.” Then she couldn’t resist winking and adding a whispered, “Most of the time.”
When Gina hid a giggle behind her hand, a little spurt of relief at pulling the wool over the other woman’s eyes made Nychelle’s smile widen.
No one, with the exception of her cousin and best friend, Aliya, would know about the IUI before her pregnancy was a fait accompli. Most people wouldn’t get why, at just twenty-eight, she was going this route. They’d expect her to be dating, looking for a long-term relationship, as though she should and would want that. Nope. Not in the cards. The relationship she’d gotten out of two years before had shattered both her faith in her own instincts and her ability to trust any man’s intentions.
Then there were her medical issues, which would only make conception harder the longer she waited to try. This was the optimal time for her to get pregnant, while leaving herself room to try a few more times if she needed to, and she was grabbing the opportunity with both hands. It was what she’d planned and worked toward since Nick had dumped her, and she knew she was extremely lucky to be able, both emotionally and financially, to make this huge step alone.
The reception phone rang, distracting Gina, and Nychelle took the opportunity to turn away toward her patient.
“Oh!”
The sound was so unexpectedly loud in the hushed environment, so rife with pain and surprise, Nychelle instinctively turned toward its source.
The young woman on the love seat was bent over, in obvious distress, her hands pressed to her lower abdomen.
“Call Dr. Leeson.” Nychelle was already moving across the waiting area toward the couple as she threw the demand back over her shoulder to Gina.
“It’s okay, Gina. I’ve got it.”
The deep voice came from near the door leading to the clinic, and by the time Nychelle had stooped down beside the young woman Dr. David Warmington was coming up behind her.
Great.
No time to dwell on how unsettled Dr. Warmington made her, or to wonder if he was the right physician for the situation. The other nurses said his bedside manner was exemplary, in between singing his praises and panting over the man’s incredible good looks.
“He’s not bringing the warm,” Nancy, the nursing coordinator, had said with a laugh before he’d started. “He’s packing heat.”
Among the nurses the name stuck, and to hear them talk you’d think “Dr. Heat” was more enticing than free chocolate and a bottle of Chablis.
Secretly Nychelle agreed, but nothing would get her to admit it. She knew all too well the danger of handsome men—especially those able to somehow charm even the most hardened of nurses. They weren’t to be trusted, and were apt to use their looks to their own advantage and the disadvantage of others.
No doubt if he wanted to he could make a lot of money modeling, showcasing expensive sunglasses on that chiseled face, with the wind blowing through his toffee-colored hair. Or making women run out to buy cologne in the hopes of suddenly transforming their hubbies into a six-foot, two-inch wall of muscle, with linebacker shoulders and a bootie made for nipping.
One glance from his intent blue eyes, reminiscent of the most gorgeous of Florida skies, could make the coldest heart quicken—even hers. But, while Nychelle admired his looks, she viewed him with suspicion—as she now did most, if not all, men.
Pushing all those thoughts aside, she said to the young woman, “Hi, I’m Nychelle. Tell me what’s going on.”
She took the other woman’s wrist firmly between her fingers, finding a strong but rapid pulse, and noting the patient’s pallor and the perspiration dotting her hairline despite the clamminess of her skin.
“I... I’m pregnant. I just realized a day ago. I was going to see my doctor after I got home.”
A visitor to the area, then, with perfect but accented English. Wide brown eyes, gleaming with tears, looked beseechingly into Nychelle’s, as though hoping for an instant end to fear and pain. Then she doubled over with a little shriek, arms crossed protectively over her abdomen.
Hugging her, the man beside her interjected, “She did a home test, but we knew she was not far along. When my wife saw a little blood and was worried, my tio told us to come here—”
The young woman turned toward her husband and unleashed a spate of angry, rapid-fire words. Working in Florida, Nychelle had made sure to keep up with her Spanish, but now she caught only the occasional familiar-sounding word. Something about a boat trip, his uncle, and losing her baby, in what Nychelle assumed was Portuguese.
“No, no. Don’t worry about any of that now.” Sympathetic but firm, the doctor’s voice cut through the young woman’s tirade and drew the couple’s attention. “I’m Dr. Warmington. Come with me and let’s find out what’s happening, okay?”
Nychelle was watching the patient and saw the moment when, even through her pain, the woman registered how handsome the doctor was. The young woman’s eyes widened and her lips parted on a silent Oh.
Under different circumstances it would have made Nychelle want to giggle, but they were already moving, the patient supported by her husband on one side, the doctor on the other, through Reception toward the examination rooms.
Nychelle simultaneously held doors open and pulled up the young woman’s information on her tablet, in preparation for handing it to Dr. Warmington on arrival at their destination.
Not a miscarriage. Please, not a miscarriage.
The thought caught her by surprise, made her stomach clench and roll, and as she began helping Mrs. Cardozo undress, she realized her hands were shaky.
Steady. Steady.
She was projecting. She knew she was. Imagining herself in Mrs. Cardozo’s position, feeling the other woman’s emotions as if they were her own, instead of putting her mind where it needed to be—on the equipment Dr. Warmington would need, the tests he’d want her to run.
It was the first time in her career she’d ever felt this way while in the midst of an emergency. Usually if she fell apart it was afterward, when she was alone and could release her emotions in private.
Taking a deep breath, and then another, she forced back all the fears building in her mind, and by the time she’d helped Mrs. Cardozo onto the examination table she’d gotten herself together.
“We’re ready for you, Dr. Warmington.”
Habitual efficiency took over then, and the well-remembered routine of working with a doctor kicked in—although since qualifying as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse she usually worked alone, or with her own nurse assistant.
Yet her emotions seemed perilously close to the surface, and it was only Dr. Warmington’s soothing presence that kept her on an even keel. O
n the few occasions she’d witnessed him with patients before she’d been impressed by his professional demeanor, but this was different. Even though his understanding and reassurance were aimed at the patient, Nychelle found herself reacting to it too, letting it wash over her in calming waves.
“I can confirm you’re pregnant.”
Nychelle noted that he spoke to Mrs. Cardozo, rather than to her husband the way some other male physicians would be inclined to—another point in the doctor’s favor.
“But,” he continued, “I can see no apparent reason for the symptoms you’re experiencing.”
He glanced at Mr. Cardozo for a moment, and Nychelle thought his gaze briefly dropped to where the young couple’s fingers were tightly intertwined.
“It could be something as simple as dehydration, or a complication that will only become apparent with further testing, so I recommend you go to Broward Medical and have an obstetrician take a look at you there. While we have our own specialists here, at the hospital they’d be able to deal with any eventuality.”
As he gave them the information for the hospital, Nychelle slipped into the adjoining office to call ahead and make arrangements. The entire situation had taken maybe thirty minutes, but she felt as though it had been an emotionally grueling marathon. She didn’t even realize her eyes were damp until she reached up to swipe at a tear.
Hanging up the phone, she stiffened her spine and turned to find Dr. Warmington watching her from the doorway. Perhaps it was the set of his lips, or the way he seemed to be watching her, with a hint of the gentleness he’d lavished on Mrs. Cardozo, but whatever it was made Nychelle’s heart rate escalate and warmth bloom in her chest.
Once more thankful for the cocoa-toned skin that made her blushes unnoticeable, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “You speak Portuguese?”
He laughed quietly as he stepped into his office and moved toward the desk. “I’m lucky to have an ear for languages. I speak a few and understand a few more.”